After industrialist Sanjeev Goenka's company New Rising bought the bid for Pune team, questions on potential conflict of interest were raised as Ganguly is a Governing Council member as well as co-owner of Indian Super League (ISL) football team Atletico de Kolkata.

One of the ATK owners is Sanjeev Goenka.

"As far as I understand, Sourav Ganguly has no conflict of interest. If he would have been involved with any team (IPL), then it would have been a different case. But I think a lot of people are not understanding what conflict of interest means," BCCI president Manohar said.

"Suppose I am lawyer and I have a client. If that client later at some point gets associated with BCCI, how is it a conflict of interest. It can only be a conflict of interest if someone in his position show bias. I think this is now being taken to an absurd level," Manohar said.